As
National Program Manager for Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service (NOS) I
serve as the principal advisor to the Assistant Administrator, Deputy Assistant
Administrator and other senior management in fostering the principles and
practices of NOS’ Diversity Program, and its Equal Employment Office (EEO) Program,
and to assure compliance with affirmative action laws and regulations. I formulate, develop, recommend, and
implement policy, procedures and programs in collaboration with NOS Program and
Staff office representatives. I am
responsible for planning, developing, and implementing NOS EEO program and
diversity activities, which includes; coordinating all phases of policy
analysis, planning, implementation and communications to support NOS EEO and
diversity management initiatives. The
most important function of my position is I have the opportunity to work with
both managers and employees to seek resolution for conflict occurring in the
workplace.

My
life has been shaped from experiences I had growing up in the small southern
town of LaGrange, GA. My parents
instilled in me the importance of a strong work ethic and education, cultivated
in a faith centered home. My parents
experienced discrimination and they were always aware of its existence, but
they would never allow me to use it as an excuse for not working hard to
achieve success. My father’s favorite
quote was, “hard work is its own reward” and I have to agree that these words
have served as the catalysis for my success.
I received my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration for Georgia
Southwestern University and my Certification in Equal Employment Opportunities
Studies from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University.

I
began my federal career within the Department of Defense, Defense Commissary
Agency as an Accounting Specialist, but my true passion for equal rights and
opportunities lead me to my position here at NOS. It may sound like a cliché but I truly love
my job. No two days are the same and every
day I have the ability to foster and generate a greater awareness for
organizational diversity. People are
diverse in many ways. We all have a
number of differences that offer substantial opportunities and possibilities to
make organizations successful and our world a better place. When we accept our differences and learn to
work with them, we enrich our lives and improve the creativity and productivity
of the organization. Hence, when we are
able to fully embrace and implement an effective diversity strategy whereby
everyone feels validated the need for enforcement policies are diminished.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to building a middle class economy in honor of Black History Month

Outside of my parents, the most influential person in my
life was the late Bishop Norman L. Wagner.
Bishop Wagner served as the pastor of the church I attended virtually my
entire life. Some of his most powerful
lessons focused on service to others and living a life of purpose. One of Bishop Wagner’s quotes that continues
to resonate with me today is that “significance
is paramount to success.” Those words have guided me in my career and life.
I strive to do things that have significance and affect real change.

After graduating from Youngstown State University in my
hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, with a business finance degree, I worked in the
banking industry for several years, until leaving to pursue a career in public
service – leaving to pursue significance.
In 2005, I was elected as the youngest and first African-American mayor
in the City’s history. I am proud to
have been given the opportunity to help change the dynamics and the
conversation about Youngstown. Not just
because it’s my hometown, but also because the issues facing Youngstown were
not unique. My work at EDA allows me to
focus on critical issues that affect distressed communities like Detroit,
Michigan; Gary, Indiana; Fresno, California; and rural areas such as Conover,
North Carolina.

As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development,
I have the privilege of leading the Economic Development Administration (EDA),
which is the only federal agency with a mission focused solely on creating
economic opportunities in distressed communities throughout the United States.
Distress is something I understand on a very personal level.

It strikes me as somewhat poetic that I was born and spent most
of my life in a community that was, for many years, defined by economic distress. Youngstown was often at the center of the U.S.’s
“post-industrialization” debate for nearly three decades due to its historic
economic dependence on the declining steel industry. While the city still faces many challenges,
in recent years, it has become defined less by its problems and regarded more
for its recovery efforts.

In my role at EDA, I often travel across the country and am
afforded the opportunity to meet people from various backgrounds. They may
differ in age, race, and wealth, but they share a common thread - a shared
sense of purpose and a desire to create better prospects for their communities
and themselves.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to building a middle class economy in honor of Black History Month

Black
history month has a special place in my heart. When I began my federal
government career 30 years ago with the U.S. Coast Guard, it was when I learned
of the many inspiring accomplishments of African Americans. There was Captain
Richard Etheridge, who became the first African-American to command a
Life-Saving station in North Carolina in 1880, and Captain Michael Healy or “Hell
Roaring Mike”, who took command of the revenue cutter Chandler in 1877.
During his 20-year career, Captain Healy was the United States Government in
most of Alaska where he acted as judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan
natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. And more recently, Admiral Stephen Rochon, the first African-American to serve as Chief Usher
of the White House,
was a good friend
and mentor to me during my Coast Guard career. Black History month allowed me to cherish my heritage, and appreciate the
contributions of these great men.

So I’m especially
honored to share my own story of a career in public service this month.

I
was born in Washington, D.C. of parents from the mountains south of Lynchburg, Va.,
who believed in and demonstrated the values of integrity, attention to detail
and above all, a strong work ethic. Both of my parents worked and retired from lifetime
careers in the federal government and my father, a decorated Korean War Veteran
and U.S Army retiree, insisted that our home stress the values of family accountability
and devotion to duty and country.

I
grew up singing in the choir and being a member of the junior usher board at
our family African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. As a young teen, I
attended Kittrell College, which was a part of the AME church, every summer for
a one week summer session which provided young African American students with
an introduction to African art, poetry and highlighted the careers of
successful African American entrepreneurs, physicians, scientist and educators.

Currently,
I am the Director of the Office of Acquisition and Agreements
Management (OAAM), and the Bureau Procurement Official (BPO) for the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where I oversee
the full range of the $1 billion acquisition
and financial assistance activities awarded for NIST and seven client Bureaus
under the Department of Commerce to support ongoing programs, operations and
mission objectives. NIST technological
research activities - cover an incredibly diverse range of disciplines
including bioscience, health care,
chemistry, neutron research, nanotechnology, information technology, ,
manufacturing, public safety, energy, physics, cybersecurity and computer
technology laboratory practices for all aspects of advanced science.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to building a middle class economy in honor of Black History Month

I am a native of Columbia, South
Carolina and a graduate of Benedict College with a BS in Business
Administration. I also received a Masters of Business Administration from the
Goizueta Business School at Emory University. After college, I began my career
with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in Atlanta, Georgia. In
2000, I joined the MBDA Atlanta Regional Office and have been with the
Department of Commerce for 14 years. I began
my career with MBDA as a Business Development Specialist and was eventually
promoted to Chief of Business Development for the Southeastern Region. My next
promotion relocated me to the MBDA National Headquarters in Washington, DC in
2012 where I currently serve as Chief of the Office of Business Development. In
this capacity I oversee the Office of Business Development and serve as the lead
federal program officer for the nationwide network of MBDA’s 44 Business
Centers.

I lead the effort within the
agency to promote economic opportunities that expand the growth and
competitiveness of minority business enterprises (MBEs) across America. I am responsible
for the creation and implementation of strategies for business development in
the areas of: access to capital, access to contracts; access to emerging
domestic and international markets and global supply chains. We also actively engage strategic stakeholders
like national chambers of commerce and trade associations in collaboration on policy
and programs.

For three consecutive years, I have
served as Conference Director for the National Minority Enterprise Development
(MED) Week Conference, the nation’s largest federally sponsored conference on
minority business enterprise. This conference is held annually in Washington,
D.C. and attracts over 1,000 attendees. Traditionally, we have hosted officials
from the White House, including the Vice President of the United States, the
Secretary of Commerce, Cabinet Secretaries and a host of CEOs from MBEs and
Fortune 500 firms.

My role at the Department of Commerce
has a direct impact on improving the U.S. economy and expanding opportunities
for all Americans. Through MBDA’s programs and initiatives, more than $6
billion in access to contracts, capital and export transactions have been
generated over the past year - resulting in 30,000 jobs created and retained.
This economic infusion contributes to the expansion of the middle class and
growth of the American economy.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting
members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to building a middle class economy in honor of Black History Month

Guest blog post by Tommy Wright, Center for Statistical Research and Methodology, U. S. Bureau of the Census

Since joining the U. S. Census
Bureau in January 1996 as a research mathematical statistician, I have provided
the overall technical leadership for the Center for Statistical Research &
Methodology (formerly Statistical Research Division). The Center for
Statistical Research & Methodology is the Census Bureau's statistical and
methodological research and consulting
facility. CSRM researchers are engaged in collaborative work
applying known statistical methods and in research for new and better
statistical methods motivated by practical problems using tools from two
key areas: mathematical statistics and statistical computing. Our statistical
methods include: (1) methods that can link hundreds of millions of records in
one data set with hundreds of millions of records in another; methods to bring
better modeling to the internal processing of data from sample surveys and
censuses, including data visualization; methods to compensate for missing data
when respondents do not answer all questions on a questionnaire; methods to
make inferences about finite populations (e.g., of people or of businesses)
using data from probability samples; methods to produce reliable estimates of
characteristics for small levels of geography or small subpopulations when the
sample sizes for these areas are very small or zero; methods to seasonally
adjust economic time series; and methods to test new or improved operations
using computer simulations or designed experiments.

A key aspect of my role is
helping the Census Bureau define statistical problems and finding
excellent researchers to work on them. My colleagues and I
work in collaboration with other Census Bureau staff as well as
through interaction with academic, industrial, government, and other
researchers. I recruit, develop, and maintain a core staff of researchers with
expertise in statistics, statistical computing, and mathematics. The problems and collaborations in my work are a
constant source of stimulating challenges that are especially rewarding when
research results are used and published.

Between 1979 and 1996, I was a
research staff member of the Mathematical Sciences Section at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory where my research focused on probability sampling and
estimation, the design of sample surveys, and elementary applied probability and
combinatorics.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series
highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to
an Economy Built to Last in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

My name is Jose F. Burgos. My nickname is Pepe and I was
born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My mother was from the town of Aguadilla in the
west part of the island, and my father was from Humacao on the opposite side of
the island. I was raised in Aguadilla by my mother and brothers after my father
passed away when I was four years old. When I was 13 years old, my mother and
older sister passed away in a car accident. Then I was raised by one of my
cousins and their family. I have one brother who lives in Baltimore and we are
very close. I was blessed to grow in a very family-oriented environment
surrounded by my cousins and friends.

At first I wanted to be a doctor, but when I start
studying and got to physics and organic chemistry, I realized medicine was not
for me. I decided to study business, but I was not sure what kind of business. I
decided to study international business with the main purpose to obtain a job
to travel around the world.

Eleven years into my career, I realize how big
international business can be – that it is more than traveling and is a daily
learning experience. I worked three years in the Puerto Rico Trade Company and
I have been currently working for the past eight years as Director of the U.S.
Commercial Service in Puerto Rico.

My passion for international commerce grew during my
academic years, ultimately leading to my earning a Master’s Degree in Business
Administration with a concentration in International Business & Marketing from
the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and a professional
development certification from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University in International Trade Policy.

It has been a rewarding and amazing opportunity to be
able to do what I always wanted to do and work in the field that I
studied.

Since 2006, I have been working as Director of the US
Department of Commerce for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. I have assisted
companies from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in exporting to countries
around the world, and provided advice with all the logistic components,
including market intelligence, trade counseling, business matchmaking, and
advocacy/commercial diplomacy support.

My support has helped companies survive difficult
economic times and helped them be among the companies that are creating new
jobs for residents in the islands.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting
members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy
Built to Last in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

As the Associate Director for Legislative and
Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Commerce, I carry two
responsibilities; handling the issues of Economic Development, Skills
Development, and Manufacturing and serving as the Acting Senior Advisor for
Native American Affairs Policy. The Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental
Affairs (OLIA) supports the Secretary on all matters pertaining to the
Department’s relationship with Congress, state/local elected officials,
territorial and tribal governments.

Before coming to Commerce, I worked in the U.S. House of
Representatives for five and a half years. There I served a Member of Congress
in his capacity on the House Natural Resources Committee as Ranking Member of
the Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Subcommittee, and later, as a
distinguished member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. During my time
in the U.S. House, I also served as Senior Policy Advisor on Rural Development,
Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and
Native American Affairs policies.

While working here at the Department of Commerce, I have
been given the great opportunity to utilize my expertise to assist the
Department and the Administration in advancing initiatives to build a stronger
American economy. Our work here at the Department truly embodies the notions of
opportunity, action and optimism because we work daily with businesses,
organizations, community leaders, and elected officials at the local and
national level to find opportunities that will create the conditions for
economic success.

I was raised in El Rancho, New Mexico, a small farming
community just north of Santa Fe, NM. As a child, I was influenced by the
time honored traditions of my rural community and developed a deep respect for
diversity in culture, language and the inherent connection between agricultural
communities and natural resources. My upbringing has always been a driving
force behind my work and advocacy in government.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

Guest blog post by Sara A. Rosario
Nieves, U.S. Census Bureau

As the Census
Scientific Advisory Committee coordinator, I help determine Census Bureau operations
and programs that need scientific advice. By working with the committee —
established by the Secretary of Commerce as an advisory body to the Census
Bureau director — I help engage some of the nation’s top economists, statisticians,
researchers, geographers, sociologists, engineers, political scientists,
demographers, and operations managers on ways to advise us on streamlining
processes without compromising quality and use proper technologies all while
saving taxpayer money.

The President’s State
of the Union Address this year centered around three key principles:
opportunity, action, and optimism. I too will use these three words to describe
my 10-plus years as a federal employee.

Opportunity: While
pursuing my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Puerto Rico, I noticed that
years of specialized experience were required for entry-level positions on the
island. I was astonished but continued studying and looking for work
opportunities. Part of my studies included a semester-long industrial management
internship with the master scheduler of Bristol-Myers Squibb pharmaceutical in
Mayaguez. One of my professors then told me about a summer internship opportunity
with the Department of Commerce, which led me to Washington, D.C., in 2001. Upon
completion of my MBA, I accepted a job with the Census Bureau. Though I was
eager to learn new things and yearned to hear fresh ideas, this geographical
move was not an easy decision but thinking back now on the incredible experiences
I have had and the professional growth I have gone through, I know I made the
right decision. While at the Census Bureau, I have completed the DOC Aspiring
Leaders Development Program and obtained a Masters Certificate in Project
Management from George Washington University. In 2011, the Department of
Commerce honored me with its Gold Medal Award for helping lead the 2010 Census
partnership program, which engaged 257,000 national and local organizations
with $1.2 billion in value-added contributions to the overall census effort.

Action: One of the most enjoyable
aspects of my civil service work is mentoring young individuals who are looking
to expand their skills and for advice on how to reach their maximum potential.
Last month, I was a panelist for the Paths for Success session of the
Government Leaders for Tomorrow (GL4T), where nationwide selected science and
technology students with diverse economic, social, academic and cultural
backgrounds come to D.C. to learn about life as a federal government employee. The
conversations with the mentees, along with recruits I regularly meet on campus,
help me understand the vast capacity of the next generation to work alongside
seasoned and experienced talent and contribute to the department’s innovation
and reengineering goals.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce
and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

I currently serve as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer at BusinessUSA, a Presidential Initiative and partnership between the Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Our mission is to help American entrepreneurs, businesses owners and executives successfully start and grow their business by making it easier for them to find and access the right government resources. Put simply, my role as part of BusinessUSA is to make sure people, money and strategy come together to achieve this mission.

From my first days at Commerce, I have been privileged to serve on initiatives and projects aimed to either directly serve the needs of businesses or assist the agencies that directly serve U.S. businesses. Prior to joining BusinessUSA, I served as Chief of the Office of Business Development for the Minority Business Development Agency where I worked on the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Recovery Projects and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. For me, it’s this type of mission-driven work that we do here at Commerce that connects me to my roots as a first-generation American growing up in East Los Angeles and Montebello, California, a suburb just east of LA.

My father was an entrepreneur who owned a service station. Like many kids of hardworking business owners in this country, I spent my weekends working with him to support the family business. I watched him succeed, and I watched him struggle. I saw his commitment to his employees and how the responsibility of making his payroll sometimes weighed on him. Later, when I took over managing the business for a short time, I felt the weight of that responsibility myself. But, I think that just like many Mexican immigrants to this country, my dad thought that all those long days and weekends were a fair price for the opportunity to build a better life for his family. His hard work gave me the opportunity to attend good schools and eventually graduate from the University of Southern California (USC). My years running the family business helped to build the foundation that my career at Commerce and before that, at USC, has been built on.

I was born in Saigon, five years before the Vietnam War ended. My family
made a tough decision, one that benefitted me for a lifetime. My mother, five
aunts, one uncle, four sisters and I were airlifted to the U.S. as Saigon fell.
When we arrived in Chantilly, Virginia, we had very little. But, we had each other, the support of a
local church and our public school. My mother and aunts taught us about our
Vietnamese and Chinese heritages, which fortunately centered around great food.
Just as important, they pushed us to learn English and become thoroughly
integrated in the American experience. I’ve been given the opportunity in my
lifetime to take the best from both worlds—from my Asian heritage and from the
rich diversity that is America. The values I extrapolated from both backgrounds
are so similar and are shared across the globe—dedication to family, hard work,
respect of others and their cultures and faiths. I’m as likely to watch a Washington Nationals
game with either Vietnamese banh mi sandwich or a hot dog.

I graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in history, high hopes and
no job. I’d like to tell you that I’m
here because I executed each element of my master plan perfectly or that I had
good fortune. But, opportunities don’t just happen without context. I applied
hard earned skills and landed an internship at the White House. I worked hard
to perfect my technical skills, becoming expert on every administration
department and agency. I became a valued
member of the team, in large measure, because no one else wanted to do the huge
volume of detailed, non-political, technical work. But I learned something else even more
valuable—that leaders in politics are often in short supply, peace and
prosperity don’t just happen and that enlightened leadership was more critical
than the technical aspects of my work. I was genuinely willing to learn from
those I believed were the best leaders, and they were willing to share their
experience and wisdom with me. I got hooked on Washington and this inexplicable
political world in which we operate.

In addition to my role on the Secretary's senior management
team, I lead the Department's effort to ensure a skilled workforce, one of the pillars
of our Open for Business Agenda. For the first time, the Department of
Commerce is focusing on the critical importance of a globally competitive
workforce as part of the Department's mission to help set the conditions for
economic growth and opportunity. In addition to developing
strategic partnerships with the Departments of Labor and Education, we are
building on the Department's existing assets, including access to business
leaders; data tools; economic development planning expertise; and Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers
that serve the needs of small and medium manufacturers. To date, I have
been spending time developing partnerships and our internal "skills
team" that focuses on expanding job-driven training that ensures employers
find the skilled workers they need and workers access quality jobs and career
paths.

Recognizing that more can be accomplished through a team effort is inherent in
my approach to solving problems and achieving outcomes due to a lifelong
passion for playing competitive sports. Growing up playing ice hockey on
a team of all boys, to playing women's ice hockey in college, to even "old
man's hockey" as an adult, I am hard-wired to think about how to
accomplish goals by utilizing my strengths in combination with those of my
teammates. This is the case in my new position at Commerce and past
positions in city government, and even when I was the sole employee of an
organization I found a way to be more impactful through strategic partnerships.
Particularly in public service positions, the fast pace and limited
resources require creativity when building and utilizing teams. I am
lucky to have worked for two respected mayors and now I view it as a true honor
to work for Secretary Pritzker and President Obama.

I often say I am lucky for the professional opportunities I’ve experienced, but
was recently chided for saying so, as if it was out of my control. What I
actually mean is better described by the quote “luck is what happens when
preparation meets opportunity.” I believe that hard work is noticed and is the
best preparation for the next opportunity, and as I learned from coaches at a
very young age, "keep your head on a swivel" to attempt to prepare
for the unexpected. This is my advice
for young people starting a career – seek out leaders you want to work for and
projects to which you want exposure. Keeping your head on a swivel was my hockey coach’s term to be looking
forward, backwards, left and right – to be cognizant of your strengths,
weaknesses and the position of your teammates who will help you achieve your
goals.

I am both honored and humbled
to have been asked to share my experience in the DOC Spotlight as part of Women’s History Month as so many extraordinary women, and their
sons, contribute to our collective achievements.

As the Economic Development
Administration’s (EDA) Chicago Regional Director, I am truly privileged to
touch lives in extraordinary ways through the catalytic investments EDA funds and
the hope and economic impact these investments bring to economically distressed
communities across the nation. As the
only federal agency with economic development as its exclusive mission, EDA
promotes the economic ecosystems in which jobs are created. EDA strives to
advance global competitiveness, foster the creation of high-paying jobs, and
leverage public and private resources strategically.

I am fortunate to work with
creative, dedicated and energetic colleagues who use their specialized
knowledge and skills to help communities transform ideas into a competitive
application that, once implemented, results in initiatives that create jobs and
leverage private investment. No two
ideas or communities are the same, and, as the competitive needs of regional
economies change to be globally competitive, EDA is constantly presented with
unique asset-based, innovative concepts that test our imagination and compel us
to “push the envelope” – trying new approaches to foster economic
sustainability and resiliency. Grant
making requires an understanding of communities and regions, risk management,
and the ability to translate visionary goals into measurable activities. It also requires building partnerships and
creating opportunities for collaboration.
While ensuring that federal funds
for transformational projects flow to communities in my six-state region
(IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, and WI), my specific role involves leading a regional
staff, fostering creativity, finding solutions, managing change, engaging in negotiations
and mediation, analyzing applications, marketing programs, and building
coalitions.

As the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Director for Financial Management, I work with all of the bureaus CFOs and financial management teams to provide support to the Department’s program managers in meeting their missions. As a community we ensure that we meet the many requirements of the federal government’s financial reporting mandates, maintain robust internal control environments, and maintain the systems to produce financial information. Perhaps, the most important aspect of our work is to ensure program managers have the information needed for decision making. I am also responsible for the Office of Secretary’s budget operations and most recently the travel, fleet and personal property offices.

I have worked in the Department for over 22 years in both the Office of Secretary and Office of Inspector General. I have held different positions within these organizations and added new areas to my portfolio over that time. While some choose career paths that cross into many federal agencies, the opportunities to continually learn new things and ability to work with outstanding financial and administrative communities have kept me in the Department.

One of the most interesting aspects in working at the Department level is the ability to engage with all of the bureaus and learn their missions as we support their financial management needs. As demonstrated in the Department’s Strategic Plan, the Department plays a critical role in the nation’s economy and the financial and administrative management communities are an integral part of mission success.

I attribute my ability to follow my dreams (yes, I always wanted to be an accountant) and my career successes to the support of my parents. I grew up in Dumont, New Jersey where my parents had migrated from England. They taught by example instilling in both my sister and me the importance of having strong work ethic, integrity and belief in oneself. They stayed in the United States as they believed we would have more opportunities to achieve our dreams, including obtaining a college education. We were the first in our family to graduate from college.

Serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles, Consumer
Goods, and Materials, my job is to improve the domestic and international
competitiveness of the broad product range of U.S. textiles, footwear, consumer
goods, metals and mining, forest products, and chemicals and plastics
manufacturing sectors and industries. This position requires strong negotiation
and problem-solving skills and the ability to work with a broad array of
stakeholders with divergent opinions in order to find solutions on a whole host
of issues.

Over the last 3 years, I have spent significant time at the
negotiating table for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement to
ensure opportunities under the agreement for U.S. textile and footwear producers. I coordinate within the ITA and across
agencies to ensure we can deliver results for companies and the workers they
employ. While the job has been
challenging, it has been an incredibly rewarding opportunity. I have worked with top-notch staff across the
Department and in the Administration who are driven to expanding opportunities
for U.S. industries and workers.

Having worked in two Administrations and on Capitol Hill, I have
always been driven by a mission to serve the American people and have been fortunate
to do so throughout my career. Growing
up, my parents, extended family, teachers, and mentors were incredibly
supportive of me and instilled in me to work hard, serve others, and have a
strong sense of self. I grew up in the close-knit community of Lockport, NY
located near Buffalo during a time when many industries in the area were facing
enormous economic hardships. Layoffs all
too often were the front page news of the local paper. My high school experience reflected what was
happening in the community – and I knew that I wanted to make it better.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by LaJuene Desmukes, Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization

As the Director for the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, I am the Department of Commerce’s chief advocate for promoting the use of small business concerns to fulfill its contract and grant requirements. Helping small businesses navigate the complex Federal acquisition arena and successfully pursue opportunities is the most rewarding job I’ve held over the course of my 34-year career.

I serve as a liaison between small businesses and the Department, seeking out and connecting quality firms with the necessary skills and expertise to meet the Department’s requirements. One of the more interesting aspects of my job is the opportunity to meet with individuals in both the government and private sector who work on projects and build solutions benefitting the nation and the world. The more I learn about the Department’s programs and industries’ capabilities, the better able I am in helping small businesses pursue and compete for opportunities with Commerce.

Small businesses, including disadvantaged, women-owned, service-disabled, veteran-owned, and small businesses located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones, are the backbone of the nation’s economy and the primary source of jobs for Americans. I’m proud to help small businesses successfully pursue contracts and grants with the Department, and to use these opportunities to help small businesses grow and thrive.

My desire to help others was impressed upon me by my parents. They met and married in Washington, DC, in the 1940s after migrating from the South in search of better paying jobs. Together they raised three boys and two girls. My parents wanted their children to have opportunities that were not available to them growing up in the segregated South. They stressed the importance of faithfully serving God, paying tithes, and honest work. These were the cornerstones of the Black community in which I grew up. My parents exemplified their beliefs by holding various church offices, paying off their mortgage, helping those in need, and serving in the federal government. My mother worked for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for over 40 years and retired as a clerical supervisor. My father retired as a Freight Rate Specialist from the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) after 35 years.

As the deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I oversee the nation’s engagement in international fisheries. My responsibilities include providing general policy guidance on various aspects of NOAA’s international fisheries work, such as sustainable management of fisheries, the protection of marine resources, and supporting the export of U.S. fisheries products. I also represent the U.S. government at various international meetings. In carrying out these responsibilities, I work closely with other NOAA employees and government officials from other agencies, including the State Department, the Coast Guard and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In addition, I frequently consult with various stakeholders, including representatives of the fishing industry, non-governmental organizations, and academia. I also regularly work with representatives of foreign countries.

As Americans, we care about the global management of our oceans for a number of reasons. Seafood is an important and healthy source of protein in the diets of many Americans and many others in the world. The seafood industry provides many jobs for fishermen and women, as well as those that build their boats and gear, seafood processors, suppliers, and many others. Although many once thought that seafood was an endless resource, we now know it is not. Providing the world with this important source of food, jobs, and economic opportunity requires careful management.

Some seafood is easily managed on the local level. However, other species, such as many of the tunas, travel far beyond national boundaries and their harvest can only be successfully managed when nations cooperate. Our mission is to work with these other nations for the sustainable management of global fisheries that is based on the best available science and that protects other non-target species and habitats from potential adverse impacts of fishing. We also work to ensure that nations are complying with adopted measures and working cooperatively with developing countries to support their ability to implement such measures. My position combines international relations with fisheries, employment, development and environmental policies.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Charmaine Davis, Office of the Secretary

Growing up in a single parent household, I learned the value of working hard to attain your goals. Watching my mother work hard and be selfless to provide for me and my siblings instilled a value of tenacity and integrity. She served in the federal government as a financial management specialist for 39 years. My mother’s love for her career has been truly inspiring and sparked an interest in me early on.

I have worked in the federal government since 2001, beginning at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Aspiring Leaders Program, coupled with great mentors, provided me with training and leadership opportunities that helped shape my career at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

My career at Commerce began in 2005 in the Office of Financial Management (OFM), Office of Executive Budgeting. For the next four years, I learned the fundamentals of the Commerce budgeting process, and later served as the Budget Officer in the Office of the Secretary (OS).

I am currently the Executive Officer, which means I am responsible for the management and execution of the Office of the Secretary’s budget. I work with OS staff to ensure that Secretarial initiatives and office needs are funded and supported. I also work with the Office of Administration to establish and enforce administrative policies and procedures for all OS offices.

In the State of the Union Address, President Obama addressed three key principles, opportunity, action and optimism. In tough budget circumstances, it is my job to work with the OS directors in creatively aiming to fulfill the Commerce Secretary’s mission using the funding we have. I am lucky to work with some incredibly enthusiastic individuals, and we strive as a team to get to the finish line.

One of the persons who have influenced me to become who I am today would be my daughter Ciani, who I had at the age of 16! What some considered being a mistake was a life lesson for me. Being a teen mom caused me to be extremely diligent to meet my objectives, to aim high, be resilient, and responsible. It is important to me to provide her and her siblings with an example of what it means to dream big and overcome the roadblocks that may be set against you. Because of that ambition, my daughter is in her freshman year at Virginia State University, obtaining her goals one by one and I couldn’t be prouder.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by George E. Jenkins, National Institute of Standards and Technology

I was born in Savannah, Georgia to parents whose myriad personal sacrifices, strong sense of excellence, and loving devotion to our family were tremendous examples for how to succeed to me and my brothers.

I was the valedictorian of my high school class, captain of three sports teams, a member of the Georgia Allstate Chorus for three consecutive years and a selected participant in the Governor’s Honors Program for Music. I subsequently received an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Bridgeport and a Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I am also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Upon graduating from college, I was hired by the international accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young). I was a senior accountant with responsibility for the audits of multibillion dollar Fortune 500 companies. Afterward, I joined the faculties of Cheney State University, Alabama State University and Alabama A&M University, where I taught accounting and finance courses. Teaching and mentoring students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) was an enriching and rewarding experience. In fact, I later hired several of my mentees within the CPA firm that my brother and I owned and operated in Montgomery, AL for many years.

Our CPA firm delivered accounting and auditing services to professional athletes in all of the major sports, as well as, to a variety of large private corporate and government clients.

I began my federal service with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). While working at CMS, I held the position of Deputy Director for the Financial Management Systems Group, which was responsible for over 40 financial management systems. I also played an integral part in the development and implementation of the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS), which was one of the largest Oracle implementations in the world at the time, processing approximately 5 million Medicare claims daily. I was an Associate Regional Administrator for Financial Management in Seattle, WA with oversight responsibilities for five western states. I received numerous awards such as the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award and the CMS Administrator’s Award on several occasions.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Joyce Ward, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

I have the honor of serving as the Director of the Office of Education and Outreach at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). I am fortunate to work with a dedicated, talented, and passionate team of people who believe deeply in the importance of educating, inspiring, and encouraging students and the people who educate them, whether they are teachers, parents, mentors, or members of the community.

Intellectual property (IP)—tangible ideas that can be bought and sold and traded—empowers people and has the potential to change society in ways both big and small. We’ve seen it over and over throughout our history with inventions such as the electric microphone, the artificial respirator, optical fiber, methods for storing blood, and countless other innovations that were developed by people with extraordinary ideas, vision, and sheer tenacity.

The Office of Education and Outreach is charged with developing, augmenting, and implementing education and outreach programming that increases knowledge and awareness of IP among stakeholders, and provides capacity building for future generations of inventors and innovators. To carry out that mission, we develop educational materials, build strategic partnerships, conduct professional development workshops for educators nationally, and provide hands-on experiences for students to help them make the connection between ideas and actualization.

I grew up in rural eastern North Carolina on Highway 58 between Wilson and Greene counties. The entrepreneurial spirit is in my DNA. Both of my parents were small business owners, and my great grandfather, first generation out of slavery, started his own business, which survived for close to 100 years. My father, a teacher by training, started a moving and storage company that evolved into a used furniture and antique shop. He also supported my mother in her business, which morphed from a gas station, convenience store, and used car lot to a restaurant and night club.

I work as a statistician in the Human Resources Division at the U.S. Census Bureau and my responsibilities include reporting on Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results for the bureau and working on policies and issues related to excepted-service field data collection employees.

I grew up on the Navajo reservation spanning parts of New Mexico and Colorado. We lived off the grid and were ranchers with livestock that needed daily attention. Summers meant camping on the outer parts of our land and sleeping under a
blanket of stars. We explored on horseback and lived a semi-nomadic
lifestyle free from the world outside the traditional Navajo culture. This lifestyle meant my brothers and I learned to be responsible and self-sufficient at an early age. Being the only girl in the family meant I had to be fearless if I wanted to keep up with all my brothers.

When I graduated high school, there were no opportunities on the reservation so I enlisted in the military. The military offered me an opportunity to pursue higher education and to serve in an honorable profession. I started going to school part-time and got an Associates degree in Logistics with the Community College of the Air Force. Later I got a B.S., in Social Science with a minor in Journalism. I made some lasting friendships and after 25 years, I retired and completed my M.A. in Applied Sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Outside the workplace, I help my husband with our small business most weekends. When you are in business, you have to be willing to adapt so you can provide the type of service that sets you apart. We have to network, be informed and sensitive to the economy just like our customers so it is a constant balancing act to remain competitive in an ever-changing market.

The Improving Operational Efficiency (IOE) program
at the U.S. Census Bureau harvests ideas from employees and brings cost saving
and efficiency-improving innovation to executive staff for possible investment.
The program has invested in 109 projects in the last three years and saved more
than $32 million. I am currently revamping the program to streamline and
improve metrics, objectives, performance and the harvesting of ideas.

There are several overarching themes within my
current responsibilities that relate to the President’s blueprint for America —
innovation, efficiency, saving money, avoiding costs, streamlining processes,
and creating projects that add strategic value to the organization. By spurring
innovation and improving operational efficiency, my program helps government
run more efficiently and do more with less.

In my varied career since joining the Department of
Commerce in 1998, I have worked in five of the Census Bureau’s12 regional
offices as well as the headquarters building in Suitland, Md. My previous
position — director of the Dallas Regional Office — was the most challenging,
as at the peak of operations during the 2010 Census, it had 111,000 employees
in 51 local census offices. I led the enumeration of more than 33 million
people while dealing with 45 congressional districts and four of the 10 most populous
cities in the country.

I was born in Uruguay and immigrated to the United
States at the age of eight. I was raised in New York City, but I have been
fortunate to live in various places around the country, which helped ratchet
down the big city experience. I was very proud of my heritage when I became the
first-ever foreign-born regional director of the Census Bureau. Still, I keep
searching for another Uruguayan in the Commerce Department.

Cuba is my birth place. My parents, my sister and I left our homeland for the United States when I was 11 years old in search of freedom. No, I did not come in a raft as I have strong allergies to shark-infested waters! While most people think that if you are Cuban, you must be from Cuban Mecca Miami, I am an anomaly to this assumption. I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and attended St. Thomas More Elementary School, Bishop O’Connell High School, and graduated from Washington-Lee High School. Subsequently, I attended George Mason University, and completed my graduate studies at Catholic University.

This year’s celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month is an important one in our history as we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the landing of Juan Ponce de Leon in Florida.

I consider myself to be a civil rights champion. As such, I’ve co-chaired the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives from 2001 to 2012, and maintained its webpage. I have met with the top leadership of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management regularly to address civil rights issues in the Federal Government.

As the Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) I am responsible for the delivery of all administrative service support functions for the USPTO including human capital strategy, human resource management, telework policy and programs, facilities management, safety and security, transportation, asset and records management. I am fortunate to work with a team of nearly 200 professionals in the delivery of these vital services to our colleagues at the USPTO. My team and I pride ourselves on being a customer-centric and service-oriented team.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio and when I was nine years old, after one particularly bad Cleveland winter, my mother, grandmother and I moved to Boca Raton, Florida. So I really grew up there. I am a proud graduate of Boca Raton Community High School.

After high school, I attended Duke University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in economics. Growing up near the water led to being interested in a career with the U.S. Navy. I was a member of the Duke Navy ROTC battalion and upon graduation was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy. My first station was as part of the commissioning crew of the USS Vandegrift (FFG-48). I later went on to serve as Second Company Officer at the U.S. Naval Academy and Executive Assistant to The Commandant of Midshipmen. I left the Navy in 1989 and went to work as a junior consultant for Coopers & Lybrand and while working earned a Master of Business Administration from The George Washington University. Today, I am married to my partner of 20 years, Robert Murphy, and we live in the District of Columbia with our black lab, Sammi Jo.

As the career official responsible for the day-to-day
management of Import Administration, I perform many
roles: making the budgetary ends meet;
acting as policy adviser plenipotentiary; being an “executive sponsor” of
various projects; and serving frequently as a diplomatic counselor or empathetic
ear to our organization’s staff and external stakeholders.

Import Administration’s core mission is to
administer our nation’s antidumping and countervailing duty laws, which provide
a remedy–typically, via a special import tariff–to help U.S. industries
that are injured as a result of unfairly traded imports. These remedies are determined through
quasi-judicial investigations conducted under the close scrutiny of the courts
and the World Trade Organization. While
the process is sanctioned by international trade rules and receives broad
support from the Congress, the outcome of any given investigation can displease
the domestic industry, the foreign exporters, the foreign government(s) and–in many cases–all of the above. You
have to have a thick skin to do my kind of work. But the work itself can be intellectually
fascinating, impinging upon some of the most controversial trade policy issues
and of make-or-break importance to the survival of many U.S. businesses and the
livelihoods of many Americans.

How did I get here? I was born in northeastern Ohio and grew up in Indiana and Illinois,
graduating from Bradley University in Peoria, IL, with a B.A. in French and
international relations. I had no clue
when I was in high school that one could specialize in such a field, but I
think that my sense of being “different” led me to explore that possibility and
the options that it might present. That
led to a junior year of college at the Sorbonne in Paris, which in turn
convinced me that I must continue in this field and find another chance at
further study abroad. I was accepted by
the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies M.A. program and packed my
bags for a year at SAIS’s center in Bologna, Italy, with my second year
bringing me to Washington–my home ever since. I can see more clearly now that my scholarly interests spoke to the
calling that I had to understand and interact with people of different
cultures, but the experience of living abroad was profoundly transformative in
liberating me from my own, often self-imposed limitations as a gay man.

For over three years, I have served as the Chief of Staff at the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the U.S. Commerce Department agency charged with administering the nation’s dual use export control system. In that capacity, I advise the Bureau Under Secretary on a range of policy, management and operations issues. I work closely with BIS leaders on Congressional and industry outreach and education designed to build support for the Bureau’s overarching policy initiative, the Export Control Reform Initiative. It is a major update of the U.S. export control system which will enhance both our national security and our economic competitiveness.

In 2010, I was recruited back to BIS, having served there as Congressional and Public Affairs Director during the Clinton administration. At that time, we also tried to reform the U.S. export control system, which has not been comprehensively updated since the end of the Cold War. As Congressional director, I was part of a team that spent two years and hundreds of hours working to reauthorize our legislative authority–and in 1994, we failed. It’s not often that you fail to attain a major goal and are given the chance to try again. That is why I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work toward this important and long overdue policy goal in this administration.

I was born and raised in Hong Kong (China), also known as Pearl of the East. Fifteen years ago, I would never have dreamt of working for one of the United States Government Cabinet level agencies, serving the American people, and working side by side with the brightest professionals in the Learning and Development (L&D) field.

My father, who was a retired language translator for the British Government in Hong Kong by day, a professor at the University of Hong Kong by night, taught me the values of integrity, working hard, and perseverance. My father’s dictum was “People may steal your money but no one can ever take knowledge away from you.” He always encouraged me to travel and see the world, which allowed me to experience life in Australia, Canada, and the United States first hand. Then, I settled down in Virginia, pursued my passion, and received my Master of Education in Instructional Technology from George Mason University, which provided me the competencies to work in the L&D arena.

Before joining public service in 2001, I worked in the private sector as a trainer, Instructional System Designer, and Training Manager. After serving the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for eight years, I began my career in the Department of Commerce (DOC) in 2009. At Commerce, I am the Acting Chief Learning Officer, Chair of the Department’s Chief Learning Officers Council, serving all the bureaus of the Department. My responsibilities include making recommendations on training development direction, including Leadership Development, to support our workforce; managing the implementation, development, quality assurance, and extended application of the enterprise Learning Management System; and providing Department training policies, processes and procedures guidance. Throughout my Commerce career, I have been supported by many mentors and managers, including Dr. Fred Lang, and Tyra Dent Smith for their guidance and leadership. I also serve on the Department’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Council and am heavily involved in the Department’s D&I learning and retention strategies.

Ed. note: This post is part of theSpotlight on Commerceseries highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Vikrum Aiyer, Special Adviser to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, USPTO

Some of the most disruptive solutions to the world's most pressing challenges are laid out in applications submitted to our office. And through the review of over half a million proposals for new products and technologies annually, I have the privilege to work alongside a team that helps protect those cutting-edge innovations in the global marketplace, with intellectual property rights.

We all know that the United States faces genuine economic competition in more sectors, from more companies, and from more places than ever before. But in order to write the next chapters of growth and remain the world’s chief global competitor, we must smartly and immediately invest in the very infrastructure that fosters American inventive potential. That’s why the agency has been hard at work to retool our nation’s patent laws from the ground up, making it easier, more cost effective, and more efficient for businesses of all stripes to protect their products and services.

Being raised in Silicon Valley, and as the son of a physicist spearheading his own enterprise, I recognize that there is no shortage of great ideas in America, but there are barriers to getting those ideas off the ground. So the opportunity to serve as a Special Adviser to the Under Secretary hits especially close to home for me, as I help assess challenges start-ups and technologists face by spearheading our public partnerships with key stakeholders around the country. The role gives me the chance to advise the Under Secretary on how to connect inventors with the tools they need to protect their companies, while also empowering me to publicly frame and communicate how the administration’s intellectual property priorities drive export and manufacturing possibilities in America.

NOAA transforms scientific data about our complex and ever-changing Earth into environmental information that touches every American, protecting their lives and livelihoods against natural hazards, informing their personal and business decisions and supporting wise management of natural resources in our coastal and marine environments. We operate the nation’s weather satellites, and our National Weather Service is the source of all your weather forecasts. Other NOAA units produce the Nation’s nautical charts, manage our marine fisheries and operate America’s underwater national parks, known as National Marine Sanctuaries. As Acting Administrator, I oversee the agency’s work to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts, to provide timely, reliable ‘environmental intelligence’ to inform sound decision-making by citizens, businesses and public officials, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.

I was lucky to grow up in Southern California at a time when an adventurous young girl could safely roam the open hills and valleys nearby, whetting her appetite for the grander expeditions she hoped to make someday. I was also inspired by the daring feats of America’s first astronauts and the exotic adventures of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, which filled our TV screens and magazines regularly and reinforced just how exciting a life of exploration could be. It never bothered me that everyone I was watching was male. My brother and I were raised with the view that every person has unique talents and interests and should pursue them as they see fit, regardless of what someone else thinks is ‘right’ for girls or boys. This attitude, plus my parents’ unwavering trust and support, inoculated me against the peer pressure I encountered at school and with my neighborhood friends and helped me steer my own course.

Ed. note: This post is part of theSpotlight on Commerceseries highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Geovette Washington, Deputy General Counsel

Serving as Deputy General Counsel in the Department of Commerce has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences in my career. The people with whom I have worked over the last three years are outstanding. The issues I have dealt with are interesting, challenging, and critical to the Department’s work. Most important, being Deputy General Counsel has presented a wonderful opportunity to fulfill my lifelong commitment to service.

As Deputy General Counsel, my job is to provide legal advice to the various parts of this Department. However, my role, and the role of all of the attorneys within the Office of the General Counsel, goes well beyond simply providing legal advice to our clients. We work to make sure that the people of the Department do not simply get a review of the legal sufficiency of their work, but also a partner in their mission. That partnership between OGC and the rest of the Department has been a point of emphasis for me during my time at Commerce and is vital to the execution of the President’s vision for creating an America Build to Last. The creativity and dynamic engagement of OGC attorneys helps Commerce agencies execute their plans to build a 21st century America that has the tools, infrastructure, and expertise to thrive.

Encouraging partnership between OGC and its clients is critical to fostering a ethos of service within OGC, and service–particularly of public service–is something I value highly and was a central tenant of my upbringing.

Having been born and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, it
could perhaps seem unsurprising that I ended up working for the federal
government. In fact, I made a very
deliberate choice 26 years ago to dedicate my career to serving my country and
I do not regret that decision to this day.

As Director of the Office of Executive Resources, I support
the Secretary in managing executive and senior professional employment
throughout the Department of Commerce. I’ve
helped to ensure alignment and cascading of Departmental and organizational
goals with performance goals of the executive and senior professional cadre in
order to enhance organizational and individual performance, accountability, and
results. One of the most enjoyable and
satisfying responsibilities of my position is working with the Office of White
House Liaison to coordinate bringing new political appointees on our
rolls. Over the years I’ve had the
pleasure and privilege to get to know some truly brilliant and accomplished
individuals who have served our president and our nation, helping execute the administration’s agenda and the programs that help America compete in the
global economy.

While government service always seemed appealing, the field
of human resources was not always part of the plan. I have had a lifelong interest in
science. In elementary school, when
given the choice of an elective course to take, I chose geology, finding myself
the only girl in a classroom full of boys. In high school, I was one of only a few female students in the Chemistry
Club. And at the risk of dating myself,
this trend continued into college, where I was regularly one of a just a small
number of women in labs. I was on track
to enter what we now call a “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics) career field.

In
my 26-year career at the Department of Commerce, I’ve found that the most
interesting things in life generally happen at the intersections. It’s the
connections between people, places, and things where true forward progress is
often made.

I
was born in Washington, D.C. and have lived in Northern Virginia most of my life.
I guess given my beginnings, it’s not surprising that I chose to study politics,
economics, and public policy. What’s more surprising is that I’ve ended up
using that knowledge to support the nation’s scientific infrastructure.

Some
background helps explain the links that led me to my current position as the
Associate Director of Management Resources, one of three deputies to NIST
Director Patrick Gallagher.

As Deputy Director in the Office of Business Liaison, my primary goal is to
execute the Secretary's international trade missions. Our office executed an
infrastructure trade mission to New Dehli, India last year, and we are
currently planning a transportation and infrastructure trade mission to
Colombia, Brazil, and Panama. The President wants to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014,
and I am proud to play in role in meeting the President’s established export
goal. During trade mission promotion and planning, much of my time is spent
interfacing with US companies, small and medium sized businesses, U.S. embassies,
and trade associations. I have also served on several White House
interagency and Commerce policy initiatives: Summer Jobs +, Doing
Business in Africa, the Affordable Care Act, Hurricane Sandy response and recovery and the expansion
of Commerce’s patent and trademark field offices. These new field offices will
speed up the patent process and help American businesses innovate, grow, and
create jobs.

I grew up in the Bronx and Puerto Rico. My grandmother migrated to New York
City in the 1950’s and found work in the garment industry, which at the time,
along with manufacturing, was a booming industry in NYC. My mom, was born in Puerto Rico and
raised my brother and I on her own and worked in clerical jobs at Local 1199
SEIU and Bronx Lebanon Hospital until she retired last October.

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Domestic Operations within the International Trade Administration's (ITA) U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, I help oversee all aspects of the Department of Commerce's trade promotion and export assistance services. This includes the management of 109 U.S. Export Assistance Centers (USEAC’s) around the country as well as oversight of the government’s efforts to recruit U.S.-based exhibitors and foreign buyers to domestic and international trade shows. In addition, my office also oversees the planning and execution of most government-led trade missions.

Often times this work involves critical analysis of our internal business operations to ensure that they are aligned with staff needs and those of our various clients—small businesses, industry associations, state and local governments and other federal agencies involved in trade promotion. Other times, it involves traveling to meet with business owners and groups to encourage them to export—thus creating or retaining more jobs here in the United States.

As Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Department, I am responsible for leading the effort that provides Department Information Technology (IT) program and project oversight for all major IT investments all appropriately aligned with the Department and mission objectives and goals. My responsibilities also include facilitating the current shared service initiatives for the Herbert C. Hoover Building resident bureaus (Commerce headquarters), which include email cloud migration, web hosting, IT security, a tier one service/help desk call center, and video teleconferencing capability. I employ a combination of leadership and management skills to provide our team members with the necessary resources to enable their individual and collective professional growth. I also implement effective fiscal strategies, performance assessments, healthy customer service focus, and the management and operations for the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO).

I consider myself a Texan, but I grew up in Alabama, graduating at the top of my high school class in Birmingham, Alabama, with a keen interest in science and mathematics. I earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a master’s of business administration degree from the University of Houston. Because I am a firm believer in education, I completed several Executive Leadership programs at Harvard, Simmons College, and Penn State University.

Sometimes even the most difficult circumstances lay the foundation for very positive outcomes. I grew up in Birmingham, Ala., in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It goes without saying that any aspirations for becoming a scientist and a senior leader of a world class scientific agency with a $1 billion dollar budget and four Nobel Prizes would never have occurred to me.

But like most people I had some advantages hidden among the more visible obstacles to success.Advantage number one: my mother and father. They made sacrifices for me and my two younger sisters and expected us to rise above our surroundings and go to college. I was also expected to get good grades even though in my community it was more important to be a good athlete than it was to be a scholar. I actually was able to do both.

Advantage number two: I had excellent, smart, and very committed teachers. Opportunities were limited for people of color in mid- 20th century Alabama. Most African Americans like me were laborers in the mines and steel mills. Professional jobs were teacher, preacher, lawyer, doctor and undertakers; and their client base was limited to the black community. The best minds of my neighborhood went to college and became teachers. And they came back to teach us everything they possibly could.

In my case that included college-level chemistry in high school. Mr. Frank Cook, my high school chemistry teacher, selected five of us for his own experiment. Starting in 10th grade he taught us the same material he had learned just the summer before at Alabama A&M University. That head start gave me the confidence I needed for college. Besides me and my lifelong friend, Marion Guyton (former Attorney with the Justice Department), others who benefitted from these highly regarded public school teachers include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, University of Maryland Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski, chief of the Census Bureau’s Statistical Research Division, Tommie Wright and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president, Shirley Jackson.

Advantage number three started with heartbreak. Guyton and I were always competing with each other. As high schoolers, we both applied to Howard University, the Harvard of the black community. Marion got a full scholarship and he was more than happy to flaunt and badger me about it. When no letter came for me, I inquired about my application. It was nowhere to be found. I later learned from my principal, R.C. Johnson (Colin Powell’s father-in-law) that the application had been lost in his office. To make up for the error, he personally arranged for me to get a scholarship to Knoxville College.

February is always a special time for our nation to remember the contributions of African Americans, but I never limit my celebration of Black History to just one month. As a child growing up in the historically rich city of Philadelphia, I learned about the men and women who made remarkable contributions to not only our community, but to our country and to the world. Certainly the significance of the election of the first African American President of the United States is particularly noteworthy during this time of reflection and introspection. I am filled with pride and deep emotion when I recall the struggles and triumphs of the past, and observe the advances we continue to make together as Americans.

Over the last four years, I have served in two leadership positions within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Today, as Chief of Staff at the Economic Development Administration, I am encouraged by how Commerce’s priorities align with the administration’s goals and by how we are uniquely positioned to play a significant role in implementing the president’s economic agenda to put more Americans back to work and invest in the industries of the future that will increase our nation’s competitiveness. In my role, I work to lead program operations, staff development, and other general management efforts. I routinely serve as management liaison for agency labor management council, departmental labor management council, other Commerce bureaus, federal agencies, and the White House.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest post by James Smith, Chief Administrative Patent Judge, United States Patent and Trademark Office

It is my privilege to serve as Chief Judge of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I was appointed to the position in May of 2011 by then Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke. Prior to taking this position I served as the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for Baxter International, a Chicago-based healthcare company that develops medical devices and treatments for a wide range of human medical conditions. At the company, I led the part of its operations concerned with its patent, trademark and copyright matters. In the current role at the Board, I am part of – actually lead -- a 300-person team, which includes about 170 administrative patent judges who hear appeals from decisions in which the USPTO denies patent rights to applicants. The Board also hears trials which resolve disputes between patent owners and other parties seeking to have patents revoked. All of our cases bring some element of closure to outstanding patent legal issues, thus helping advance the use and protection of inventions in the United States. Our mission is squarely centered on helping innovative businesses bring about an America with great well-being for all.

For me, taking the position at the USPTO allowed me to return to Washington, DC, after being away for more than 20 years. I grew up in DC, and was a big beneficiary of the many educational things it had to offer, such as its historical sites, museums and wonderful cultural offerings. My parents, who taught in the area schools for decades, made regular use of Washington’s cultural richness in their wider instruction of all three of their children. They were big proponents of education, and always insistent that their children learn and appreciate history, including by knowing of the substantial contributions of African-American citizens to the development of our country.

I work as an Information Technology
(IT) Specialist in the Administrative and Management Systems Division (AMSD)
for the U.S. Census Bureau. My
key responsibilities include supporting the applications software within the
AMSD Division as well as supporting the Commerce Business Systems (CBS). My job requires a combination of trouble
shooting and problem solving as well as providing customer support. My entire professional career has been in
public service of which 25 years have been at the Census Bureau. At the Census Bureau, I have worked in
different IT fields – as a UNIX, Linux, and VAX/VMS System Administrator, as a
Systems Analyst responsible for installing/configuring SAS software, and as a C
programmer. Prior to that, I worked for the USDA in
Austin, TX as a Mathematical Statistician.

From 2003 to 2006, I was given an
opportunity to serve as a liaison to the Census Bureau’s Advisory Committee on
the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) population. The AIAN Committee is one of the Census
Bureau’s Five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees (REAC) which provide a
continuing channel of communication between the AIAN community and the Census
Bureau. Serving as a liaison, gave me an
opportunity for better understanding of the Decennial operations at the Census
Bureau. It also provided an insight of how
the Census Bureau worked with the AIAN Committee in obtaining
an accurate count of the American Indian population.

As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Market Access & Compliance,
I have the great privilege of working each day to advance the President’s trade
policy agenda to grow U.S. exports and help American industry compete in
foreign markets under the President’s National Export Initiative. In a world where 95 percent of consumers and
80-90 percent of world GDP growth will exist in coming years outside of the
United States, our work to grow U.S. exports has never been more
important. I feel fortunate to have the
opportunity to work with my talented colleagues at Commerce and throughout the
government on efforts to keep the United States globally competitive and to
help to increase our access to these dynamic and emerging global markets.

I am a fourth-generation American, born and raised in southern New
Mexico, not far from the U.S.-Mexico border. I am the descendant of Mexican farmers and ranchers, who settled in
northern Mexico and what is today the States of New Mexico and Texas. My family left New Mexico for sunny
California just as I entered high school. I spent my high school years in
California’s San Joaquin Valley, one of our nation’s most productive agricultural
regions.

I was the first in my family to attend college and was lucky enough to
earn a spot at Harvard College. While at
Harvard, I became deeply involved in organizing and running community service
programs aimed at working with at-risk populations. That led to an opportunity following college
to help advocate for the creation of a nation-wide system of national service—like
a domestic Peace Corps. In fact, my
first political job was in the Clinton Administration, where I was an integral
part of the team that established the AmeriCorps program.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Carly Montoya, Director of Advance, Office of the Secretary

I grew up in Pueblo, Colorado. My father, Jim, started off as a migrant farm
worker and later put four children and my mom through college. My mother, Pat, started off as a beautician
and later went to college when I was in middle school while still raising four
kids and helping my father provide for my family. They did everything they could to support my
family so that my brother, sisters and I would have opportunities that they
never had. Because of their sacrifices
and their relentless determination, I graduated from Tufts University with a
world of opportunities before me. I chose
a career in public service.

There are a lot of different fields in public service, but
advance is a field I was drawn to for one big reason: Advance is a team effort. Like my parents taught me, if one person
fails, everyone fails. If one person
succeeds, we all succeed.

Advance is the spoke in the wheel and where everything
comes together. It involves
coordinating the objectives of the various departments and bureaus at the
Department of Commerce so that the Secretary can engage people who are on the
front lines of job creation across America and around the world. It’s about communicating how the work that we
do here at Commerce can nurture an environment where businesses and innovators
can create jobs by building things here and selling them everywhere.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog post by Danny Meza, Senior
Adviser to the Under Secretary for Industry and Security in the Office of
Congressional and Public Affairs

As Senior Adviser to the Under
Secretary for Industry and Security in the Office of Congressional and Public
Affairs, I advise the Under Secretary on legislative matters that impact the
administration of export controls under the Commerce Department’s jurisdiction.

I was born and raised in San Antonio,
Texas. I grew up during a time when local community leaders like former San
Antonio Mayor and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, voter
registration activist William C. Velasquez, and Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez
worked to galvanize the Hispanic community by encouraging greater civic
participation. Today, that same call to public service can be seen in leaders
like Mayor Julian Castro and State Representative Joaquin Castro. The same call
to public service led me to the Commerce Department in November of 2009.

My dearest friend Albert Einstein said, "The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable
receiving." Giving is the driver that motivated me to pursue a public service
career. My parents, who proudly retired from
the Puerto Rico government, encouraged me to enter public service for our country. Being
educated in the Puerto Rico public system and graduated from the University of
Puerto Rico with a bachelor in Secondary Math Education and a Masters in Public
Health in Biostatistics, I prized the significance of professional education in
the workplace. Today, as a doctoral candidate in Information Assurance, I embrace
how diversity presents innovative solutions for the challenges of our competitive
world market.

My career started in academia, where I worked as a
clinical researcher in a School of Medicine, and mathematics, statistics and
computer science professor for undergraduate and graduate programs in public
and private universities. My experience in academia led me to accept a
position as a survey statistician at the Census Bureau, where I revised statistical
and mathematical protocols and the translation of census materials written in
Spanish to assure the Agency’s mission. Through the observation of Spanish field
interviews, I valued the contribution of Hispanics population into United States’
economy. Currently, I work for the NOAA
Fisheries Service, where I manage a survey that produces catch-effort estimates
of recreational fishing activities and help oversee the budget allocated for
recreational and commercial survey operations. As a Hispanic woman, I cherished
the importance of a diverse workforce to outreach growing minority populations
in accountability of fishery stock assessment and management in the United
States and its territories.

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting members of the Department of Commerce and their contributions to an Economy Built to Last.

Guest blog by Cristina
Bartolomei, Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist and Hispanic Employment
Program Manager at the Office of Civil Rights, Office of the Secretary

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist and Hispanic Employment Program Manager for the Office of Civil Rights at the Office of the Secretary, I work every day to serve the Hispanic community and other minorities in and outside of Commerce to identify policies, practices and procedures that may enhance or hinder their equal representation within the Department.

Growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico as the third child of four, my father often called me the defensora de los oprimidos or “defender of the oppressed,” as I always attempted to dissect and analyze sibling disagreements until the parties involved made peace with one another. My siblings didn’t seem too fond of me doing this and, looking back, I don’t blame them. It was in those days that I found myself daydreaming about being part of something bigger than myself, about doing something truly meaningful in the lives of others.

Many years later, I find myself working for a Cabinet department in the Nation’s Capital, proudly serving the President of the United States. Every day I work with internal and external organizations to educate about and improve Hispanic-American representation at the U.S. Department of Commerce.Sometimes it feels as if I’m still daydreaming–but real it is, and this reality is ingrained in the choices we make.

Ed. Note: This post is part
of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights members of
the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of an
America Built to Last.

I am honored to serve as Counselor to the Secretary
of Commerce, where I support Secretary Bryson and lead his Office of Policy and
Strategic Planning. I direct a team of
policy advisors that works across the Department and Administration to implement
President Obama’s America Built to Last blueprint through focus on a few key
priorities: increasing exports and
investment, and strengthening U.S. manufacturing and innovation. As Secretary Bryson has said, our mission at Commerce
is to help American businesses “Build it here and sell it everywhere.” As part of Secretary Locke and then Secretary
Bryson’s senior staff, I have focused my time on economic relations with China,
U.S. manufacturing and innovation, and cybersecurity.

I joined Commerce
from Microsoft, where I directed international policy and strategy in
headquarters, then moved to China as General Manager for China Policy and
Strategy. Prior to that, I served at the
White House and State Department during the Clinton Administration as Special
Assistant to the President and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, working on international
trade, economic and technology policy.

I graduated
from Yale College, worked in the U.S. Senate, attended University of
Pennsylvania Law School, then practiced trade law. As a young lawyer, I served on the
Immigration Committee of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, and as pro bono
General Counsel of the Organization of Chinese Americans. Living in China in recent years, I was an
elected governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and a member of
the board of USITO, which represents U.S. technology companies in China.

Ed.
Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights
members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's
vision of an America Built to Last.

As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Resource Management, my main
responsibility is to support the Office of the Secretary to link Budget,
Performance, and Risk Management with the strategic direction of the
Department. The budget for the Department of Commerce is approximately $8
billion and contains numerous Presidential priorities including trade promotion
and advance manufacturing as well as programs of national security such as
weather prediction and export control enforcement. Furthermore, we are working with each bureau to create a
uniform enterprise risk management framework to improve Department’s ability to
understand the status of major programs and make decisions based on that
information. Our office plays a critical role in supporting the President’s
agenda, as we use performance and risk information to formulate the budget in
accordance with the Administration’s priorities. My favorite part of this
job is that both policy formulation and implementation come together as budgets
are formulated, allowing me to get a complete picture of how public policy
works.

I was born and grew up in Chicago, IL. My parents emigrated from India
in the early 1970s and have lived in the Chicago area for most of my life. I
received a BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI,
a Masters in Public Health from the University of Illinois-Chicago with a focus
in Epidemiology, and moved to DC in 1997 to get a Masters in Public Policy from
Georgetown University with a focus on health policy. I worked at the
Office of Management and Budget for 11 years on veterans and military health
issues prior to joining the Department of Commerce.

Ed.
Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights
members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's
vision of an America Built to Last.

As Director of the Office of
Innovation & Entrepreneurship, my main responsibility is to manage and
coordinate efforts to commercialize more of the research that is funded by the
federal government. The US government provides about $150 billion in
research funds to universities, labs and companies annually, and we are finding
ways for support greater commercial application of that research to create
successful companies and jobs. We support
the President’s Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, work with
over 500 universities around the country on issues of innovation and
entrepreneurship, and run the i6 Challenge, which is a $1 million award to six
different winners each – focused on creating more commercial ventures at our
research institutes.

Our office plays a critical role in supporting the
President’s agenda. America’s greatest advantage is its innovation
infrastructure and its deep culture of entrepreneurship. Our office
supports the development and implementation of programs and policies to enhance
that. This includes funding for innovation centers, coordination with
universities and federal labs, and communication with entrepreneurs directly to
understand their challenges and needs from the Administration. Supporting
innovation is critical for sectors such as manufacturing and energy, and
entrepreneurship can never be taught too early.

I grew up in Wayland, MA, just outside of Boston. My
parents emigrated from India in the 1960’s and have lived in the Boston area
for most of my life. I got my BS in Political Science and Economics from Northeastern University in Boston, MA. and
then moved to DC to get my Master’s in Public Administration
from the George Washington University with a specialization in international
development.

Ed.
Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights
members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's
vision of an America Built to Last.

At the Commerce Department, I have the privilege to serve as
Secretary Bryson's senior policy adviser on energy and environment issues.

My parents emigrated from Korea over forty years ago with a
couple of suitcases and an incredible work ethic. They eventually landed
in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, halfway between my dad's small
business fixing electric motors and the Veterans' Administration medical center
where my mom was a doctor. My sisters and I were products of our parents'
focus on education, independence, public service, and proximity to a good
public school system.

When I was in elementary school, my dad used to wait with me
at the bus stop until the bus came to pick me up. The only days when this
did not happen were election days because my parents were already waiting in
line at the polls. Early on, they instilled in us the right and responsibility
to vote. Although it was years before I could vote, my curiosity on how
democracy works was piqued at an early age.

My parents probably wanted me to follow in their footsteps
and be an engineer or a doctor, but I chose a major in Earth Systems at
Stanford University. Earth Systems is
a major in environmental science and policy and I chose to focus on our
ocean ecosystems. This was my first foray into learning about public
policy that led to a Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island and several
years on the Committee on Natural Resources in the U.S. House of
Representatives.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

As Senior Adviser to the Deputy Secretary, I support
accomplishment of the mission of all of our operating units. My job requires a combination of problem-solving, coordinating across bureaus and offices, and connecting people to the
resources they need to successfully deliver results to the American people.

Much of the time, this involves working to improve the way we do
things–how to be more effective and efficient in our processes-and
measuring our progress towards our goals. The work is always interesting because I get to work with very dedicated
people who deliver results across the broad portfolio of the Commerce
Department. The people of the Department
of Commerce are delivering results in areas as diverse as supporting the growth
of regional economic clusters; managing grants to build broadband networks;
providing severe weather warnings earlier than ever before; delivering cutting
edge measurement science and protecting our business’ intellectual property.

I have been working for 32 years and have been very fortunate in
my career. My good fortune started with
parents who supported all three of their daughters by setting high standards;
by instilling a strong work ethic, perseverance and a “can do” attitude and by
teaching us to live by the Golden Rule. I was fortunate to enjoy the process of learning and receive a wonderful
formal education. And finally, I have
been fortunate in the support of many mentors, both formal and informal,
throughout my career.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

As Commissioner for Trademarks at the United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), I oversee all aspects of the USPTO’s Trademarks
organization including policy, operations and budget relating to trademark
examination, registration and maintenance. The main functions of the Trademark office are
the examination of applications for registration and the maintenance of those
registrations. Trademarks are an
important form of intellectual property that can be a company’s most valuable
asset. Trademarks also serve a vitalfunction in protecting consumers from
confusion about the source of goods and services in the marketplace.

I first joined
the USPTO in 1983 as an examining attorney. I was extremely fortunate because trademark law was an area that I enjoyed
in law school and government service was very appealing to me. At that time, the majority of examining
attorneys were men, but today, 67 percent of our examining attorneys are women! This is due in part to an increasing number
of women in law over the past few decades, but the high percentage of women is
also due to the flexibility here at the USPTO which allows employees to
successfully balance work and family life. Telework and flexible schedules allow employees to create the
environment that works best for them.

Women’s
History Month means a great deal to me. As
women’s roles have changed and expanded, many occupations that were
traditionally filled primarily by men have benefited from the great talent and
hard work of women. Here at the USPTO, I
have been lucky enough to work with some terrific leaders who happen to be
women. For example, my former boss,
former Commissioner Lynne Beresford, was a great mentor and role model.

Ed.
Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights
members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's
vision of an America Built to Last.

I direct the Demographic programs at the Census Bureau. We calculate annual population estimates for each area of the US, calculate the official poverty rate numbers, and work with data from the decennial census and the American Community Survey to create numerous reports and products that inform our nation about the changing characteristics of our growing population. We also conduct surveys on behalf of other Federal agencies such as the National Crime Victims Survey, which the Bureau of Justice Statistics uses to calculate the crime rate, the Current Population Survey, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to calculate the unemployment rate each month, and many others. One unsung area of the Census is our strong international program. That group, in cooperation with USAID and other agencies, offers technical assistance to countries on how to set up their own scientific and objective statistical activities and conduct censuses and surveys of their population.

The President has laid out a vision to build an America that lasts, and the Census Bureau contributes to that future. Much of the data that we produce is used by state and local Economic Development Authorities to bring businesses to their area. Businesses use the information to make relocation decisions and to target their marketing appropriately. We also report, at various geographic levels such as states, counties, cities, and small towns, on educational attainment, income, poverty, how people make various use of government assistance programs, and other critical information needed to inform our communities on how we as a nation are doing and where we need to invest our resources to strengthen our future. Without the data collected by the Census Bureau, we would not have the information we need to grow our economy, create jobs, improve our schools, build roads, and other activities critical to our civil society.

I grew up in Detroit, but have been living in the Washington, DC area for many years now. I earned my Masters in Administrative Science from the University of Alabama and then became a Presidential Management Fellow at the US Department of Transportation. I went on to earn my Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from the George Washington University. Since I enjoy school and learning so much, I’ve returned as an adjunct professor there, teaching in the Trachtenberg School of Public policy and Public Administration.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

As Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, I work alongside David Kappos in advising the President of the United States, and other members of the Obama administration, on matters relating to Intellectual Property (IP) policy. When wearing my Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) hat, I help oversee the process by which our nation grants IP rights for cutting-edge innovations and technological breakthroughs. By protecting brands and ideas through trademarks and patents, companies are more readily able to attract investments, hire more employees, spur additional research & development, distribute their products in the marketplace and spawn new growth in new industries.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

As a
native Washingtonian, and having earned a B.A in Psychology from Hampton
Institute and a Master of Public Administration from Howard University, I knew
early on that I wanted my life work to center around individual and
organizational success. To this end, I decided to dedicate my career to public
service. Over twenty years of my career
has been spent in the Department of Commerce.

Since February 2011, I have had the privilege
to serve as Deputy Director, Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM). My primary responsibility is to lead and
direct the development and implementation of government-wide and departmental
policies, employee programs and activities in all aspects of human resources
management and administration.
Additionally, this includes coordinating and overseeing HR operations at
each of the department's seven bureau level HR service centers. This role has
given me an opportunity to serve the department’s workforce at each stage of
the employee lifecycle (planning, recruitment, hiring, training and
development, retention and retirement/separation).

In
partnership with the Director of OHRM, William “Bill” Fleming, our vision is to deliver
optimal HR services and products that support and enable mission accomplishment
and create a workplace environment that fosters excellence and innovation. This vision is rooted in the policies,
processes and practices that support and sustain a strong and capable
organizational workforce built to serve the American people.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

I am a native of Washington, DC and had the benefit of
growing up in a home with loving parents who stressed family, integrity,
achievement, service, and education.The values I learned at home were
reinforced by those I was taught by the Jesuits at Gonzaga High School. This strong foundation led me to receive
degrees in Physics from MIT (Ph.D.) and Johns Hopkins (B.A.).

Physics is simultaneously empowering and humbling. It is empowering in the knowledge and
understanding that helps others and humbling in that often the more we learn
the more we realize we do not know. When
I was in school, it was disturbing that so few minorities and women were
considering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) career
fields. So, after finishing at MIT, I
applied for positions at universities in Africa and at Historically Black
Colleges in the U.S. My first two
positions were on the Physics Faculties at Southern University (Baton Rouge)
and Morehouse College. I am very proud
that, among the students I taught while at Morehouse, two are now NOAA
scientists.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

I am currently Director of the Office of Budget at the
Department of Commerce. That means I am the principal adviser to the Chief
Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration and other
Department officials on all things related to the planning, formulation, execution
and defense of the Department’s budget.

I understand that not everyone is a numbers person, but I
love this position because of public debates associated with supporting the president’s agenda and, more important, the roles and mission this
Department plays in executing those objectives in helping to create an America
built to last!

My entire professional career has been in public service. Prior
to joining Commerce in March of 2011, I served 33 years in the United States
Air Force. My last assignment was Director of Financial Management and
Comptroller for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Hampton,
Virginia. As Chief Financial Officer for the largest operational command in
the Air Force and the principal financial adviser to the Air Combat Command
Commander, I led a 67-person financial management staff that supported a
financial network of more than 1,100 people supporting 25 air wings, 1,100
aircraft and approximately 105,000 personnel. I retired from active duty as a colonel in February of 2011 and was
given an opportunity to continue my service to the nation here at the
Department of Commerce.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of an America Built to Last.

I have dedicated the majority of my professional career to guiding faith-based and non-profit organizations toward positive social and economic change. I attended Howard University (GO BISON!!), graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Finance, and earned a Master of Divinity Degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. Additionally, I received a Master of Public Administration from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University.

In June 2009, I was appointed by the White House as the Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Commerce. As a member of Secretary John Bryson’s senior advisory team, I seek to forge and enhance partnerships with secular and faith-based organizations, particularly in policy areas of census, economic development and minority business development.

At Commerce, we are working hard to create an America built to last. One of the ways my office approaches this goal is to strengthen and increase capacity of the non-profit organizations by encouraging cross-sector partnerships to stimulate local economies, create jobs and attract private investments in communities with high unemployment and low per capita income. In 2010, non-profits alone accounted for $779 billion of our country’s gross domestic product (5.4 percent). As we work to improve our economy, it’s important to know that non-profits employ and create jobs locally; in 2009, nine percent of the economy’s wages, and over 10 percent of jobs in 2009.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight
on Commerce series, which highlights members of
the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of
winning the future through their work.

As
an employee in the U.S. Census Bureau, I serve as a program analyst in the
Decennial Management Division’s Outreach and Promotion Branch. My key
responsibilities include responding to internal and external stakeholders, and the planning
implementation and evaluation of assigned American Indian and Alaska Native and
decennial communication program activities and products related to the 2010 Census.

My journey into this profession started many
years ago. I grew up in a suburb of Del City, Oklahoma. Both of my parents were
government employees and they worked at the Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest
City, Oklahoma until they retired. After high school, I attended Rose State
College on a basketball scholarship and graduated with an Associate’s Degree in
Travel and Tourism. Later, I received my Masters Degree in Project Management
from George Washington University in 2007.

In
1998, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce recommended me to the Census Bureau’s
Kansas City Regional Office for a Partnership and Data Services Specialist. This position was responsible for developing
partnerships primarily with federal, state, local and tribal governments for
pre-census and Census 2000 promotion activities. This position allowed me to develop
partnerships with the 39 Federally-recognized tribes in the state of Oklahoma
for pre-census and post Census 2000 activities.
I also felt that being a member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe was
instrumental in forming these partnerships.
These partnerships helped in producing and creating a new geographic
delineation now known as an Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area, (OTSA). This delineation
is documented on the Census 2000 and current 2010 AIAN Wall map. The AIAN wall map is the product most
requested from the AIAN population. The
work accomplished for Census 2000 helped in my employment to the Census Bureau
Headquarters office.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on
Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department
of Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the
future through their work.

As a NOAA employee, I am in charge of the weather service
office in Bethel, Alaska, a hub for more than 50 communities and villages with
about 25,000 native residents. It is located in the delta regions of the mighty
Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. The office has a number of responsibilities that
include upper-air and aviation observations, climate data collection, and the
dissemination of weather products.

I am Inupiat Eskimo with some Russian, from the early explorers, on my mother’s side. After my father died in the US Air Force, My mother, three younger siblings
and I moved to Unalakleet. I attended BIA school in Unalakleet and then went to
a Native boarding school in Sitka until my high school graduation in 1968.
Afterwards, I went to college in Fairbanks, Sitka, and Anchorage; however, I
did not complete a degree because I decided I wanted to stay with NWS
long-term.

Ed.
Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of winning the future through their work.

As Tribal Intergovernmental Affairs Specialist in the Census Bureau’s Office
of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, I work with Tribal, state,
county and local governments directly or through our partner advocate groups.
More specifically, I’m the Subject Matter Specialist on American Indian and
Alaska Native (AIAN) programs and policy for Census – as part of that role, I
offer guidance and support to the bureau’s divisions, branch offices and
regional offices.

My journey to this role began as a child growing up in the deer clan of the
Osage Nation of Oklahoma. My father served for more than four decades as the
high school’s band director near the Osage reservation. My mother made
traditional Osage clothes to wear at the I’n-lon-shka dances, our traditional
annual gathering. She made exquisite Osage ribbon work and won national
recognition for her skill. I remember her being active in tribal affairs – both
regionally and nationally – and she often took me with her to meetings and
events. These experiences gave me an opportunity to travel around the country
learning from a host of Indian people. I still return home every June with my
family for my ceremonial dances, a time to reconnect with family and my Osage
culture. I am Osage every day, but the
dances help to revitalize and re-energize me for the coming year.

My upbringing differed from many others who grew up in and
around the reservation. My father worked his way through college and my mother
attended college at a time when most American Indian women were not able to do
so. It was important for me to continue this tradition of valuing learning and
so after I graduated with my Master’s degree, I taught for nine years in the
Bureau of Indian Affairs system and I’m proud to say that all four of my
children graduated from college and are active in their local Native community.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

Every day, I have the privilege of serving the American
people as the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade. It is
a tremendous honor to be able to give back to a country that has given so much
to me.

My story is the American story. My grandparents and father were immigrants from
Spain; they believed in the American Dream, and worked hard to achieve it.

We lived in Tampa, Florida.
Growing up, I learned a lot of lessons that serve me well today. Through my father, who used to run a candy
factory in Spain, I was able to learn how important small- and medium-sized
businesses are to a community’s development. My mother worked as the
Director of one of the first Head Start programs in the country. She
wanted all children to get the best possible start in life and dedicated her
time to helping others. That’s why she is my hero.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

Angela M. Manso is Chief of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Census Bureau

As Chief of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at
the U.S. Census Bureau, I serve as the primary advisor to the Director of the
Bureau regarding congressional and intergovernmental matters.

I am one of three political appointees at the Census Bureau and
one of nearly 15 Hispanic appointees at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Growing up in the working class neighborhood
of Villa Palmeras in Santurce, Puerto Rico, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine
I would work for the President of the United States.

While living with my grandmother, who read the paper and
watched the evening news daily, I developed a healthy interest in current and
foreign affairs. The news reported about
civil wars, dictatorships and coups happening all over Latin America and the
Caribbean, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
I wanted to understand why these things were occurring and I haven’t
stopped since.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

Anna Gomez is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and the Deputy Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

As
Deputy Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration, I serve essentially as the Chief Operating Officer of the
agency. Though much of my time is spent on management, I also work on public
policy, especially the challenges of expanding broadband Internet use in
underserved communities and improving communications for the nation’s first
responders. I am honored to play a role in addressing issues that are so vital
to our nation’s safety and economic future.

My
career path began early. I was born in the United States but spent most of my
childhood in Bogota, Colombia, where my father’s family lives. I knew since
childhood that I would one day become a lawyer because my mother always told me
so. (I would like to think that she recognized in me a precocious talent for
logic and deduction, but she was actually commenting on my willingness to argue
a point!) I returned to the United States as a teen and did indeed go to law
school. I am glad that I did because the law is a good foundation for a career
in public service, though it is certainly not mandatory.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

William A. Ramos is the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

As Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Office of
the Secretary, I have the privilege to serve President Obama and the Department
of Commerce Secretary promoting their policies, programs and initiatives with
state and local elected officials as it relates to the 12 bureaus within the
department. In a city where politics and
government looks inward toward Capitol Hill, I have the unique opportunity to
look toward the 50 states and five territorial capitals, the 3,068 counties,
and thousands of cities, townships and villages and their governmental
associations. From the 2010 Decennial
Census, promoting the National Export Initiative, to NOAA’s work with governors
and mayors and everything in between, the work with these elected and appointed
officials is important to the President, the Secretary and to our nation.

I do this work with the assistance and collaboration of 12
very dedicated Bureau Directors of Intergovernmental Affairs, who stand ready
to assist state/local and territorial officials and their staffs to improve the
understanding of the Department of Commerce’s critical work across the country
and around the world by conducting outreach and education activities.

Prior to my appointment to the
Obama Administration, I was Director of the
Washington, DC office of the National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, leading a team that represented
NALEO’s mission of empowering Latinos to fully participate in the American
political process by advocating on Capitol Hill and the Administration on
policy issues related to immigration, naturalization, the Census, voting rights
protection and representation in the administration. I began my career at ASPIRA of Florida, a
youth leadership development organization, and have worked in governmental
relations with America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth and the YMCA of the
USA here in Washington, DC. I was also the
Director of Policy and Legislation for a Miami-Dade County Commissioner.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight
on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce
who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through
their work.

Since joining the Minority Business Development Agency in
April 2010, I serve as the principal advisor to the MBDA National Director and
manage the day-to-day activities of the Agency’s 5 Regional Offices and 48 Minority Business Centers.
These Offices and Business
Centers are vital centers
of economic growth and job creation. Under the Obama Administration, MBDA has
assisted minority-owned firms in obtaining nearly $7 billion in contracts and
capital, creating nearly 11,000 during the last two years. As the
National Deputy Director, I am also responsible for executing the Agency’s
mission to help Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) grow and succeed through
access to capital, access to contract and access to business opportunities both
domestically and abroad.

Prior to MBDA, I served as Special Advisor to the Under
Secretary for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade
Administration (ITA) where I was responsible for business outreach and
development of policy initiatives geared at trade promotion and enforcement of U.S. trade
laws. Before coming to the Department of Commerce, I was a practicing attorney
for several years, working in the private, government and non-profit
sector. I also served as the Interim Executive Director of the Hispanic
National Bar Association working with the White House and non-profit
organization, such as the Latinos for a Fair Judiciary, in support of the
nomination and confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme
Court.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of winning the future through their work.

My father served in the U.S. military so as a child our
family moved all over the world. I fondly remember my time in New Mexico,
Texas, Washington state, and abroad in Panama and Japan. Even though I was a
world traveler as a child, I found Texas to be home. I entered and graduated
from Rice University in Houston, Texas and graduate school in Public Affairs at
the University of Texas at Austin. After college and graduate school I was
recruited to work at the Congressional Research Service, a part of the Library
of Congress that specifically responds to congressional inquiries. I have
held several jobs in Washington, in and out of government, but immediately
before starting at NOAA I worked as the Public Outreach Director, Economics for
AARP. Prior to that, I worked for almost 8 years at the Department of Commerce
where I served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs among many
other positions.

I feel very grateful to work in this administration to
further the President’s goal of winning the future. At NOAA we perform a
variety of services that move the President’s agenda forward. In my role as
Director of NOAA’s Office of Legislative Affairs, we help communicate that
vision to the Hill every day, ensuring that members of both parties understand
how NOAA’s daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring,
fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce
support America’s economic growth and affect more than one-third of the gross
domestic product. I’m particularly proud of NOAA’s effort to establish a
climate service, which will provide available information about long term
weather for public and private sector audiences and will be a significant
innovation in the service that government can provide its citizens. Our work to
build sustainable fishing waters will ensure that coastal communities can
remain viable.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of winning the future through their work.

Guest blog byJim Stowers, Director of Legislative Affairs.

As Director of
Legislative Affairs at the Department of Commerce, I serve as a senior advisor
in the Office of the Secretary on legislative matters before Congress and other
federal departments.

My journey to this
point in my career began about 25 years ago when I was growing up in Benton
County, Arkansas and had the good fortune one Saturday evening to hear Senator
Dale Bumpers speak at the annual Little Flock Picnic. I don’t recall everything Senator Bumpers
said in his speech that night, but I do recall being star struck by an
exceptionally gifted speaker and inspired by his pursuit of the common good
through public service.

That moment -
combined with my growing awareness of the political process and its importance
– inspired me to pursue an internship in Senator Bumpers’ Washington office
while I was in college and later serve for 12 years in the office of U.S. Senator
Blanche Lincoln. Today, I feel blessed
to have the opportunity to continue my public service in the Obama Administration
at the Department of Commerce.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which
highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the
president's vision of winning the future through their work.

Asian Pacific American Month gives you time to reflect on your origin,
your country of birth and learning through and across cultures. It is conveying these assets, experiences and
skills that build a better community and a better country. At the U.S. Commercial Service, improving
opportunities for American businesses domestically and abroad is what drives
me. It is why I'm behind President
Obama's plan to win the future. To do so, we must out-innovate, out-educate and
connect U.S. businesses to the 95% of consumers who live outside the U.S. This is my key responsibility: connecting U.S. businesses to global
opportunities. This lays the foundation
for a strong, sustainable economy in the United States and beyond.

I am privileged to lead a service with almost 1500 trade professionals
who assist American enterprises everyday to connect to global partners and to
new markets. Of the U.S.'s 30 million
companies, only 1% or 280,000 companies export and of those who do, 58% export
to only one market. We can and we must
do better, and it is this challenge and opportunity that the US&FCS trade
specialists and I focus on each day.
This country needs more exporters and potential entrepreneurs and
exporters amongst you do not have to go it alone - you have the full support of
the U.S. Government in connecting you to global partners and global markets.

Ed. Note: This post is
part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights members of
the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of
winning the future through their work.

Anita Ramasastry is the Senior
Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Market Access and Compliance

In my role as the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for
Market Access and Compliance, I develop and advance strategies to keep markets
open for U.S.
exporters. In the International Trade
Administration, we do this by trying to reduce or eliminate trade barriers in
other countries. Recently I was asked to
establish a new initiative focused on preventing corruption in global
trade. In addition, as part of the President’s
National Export Initiative, I coordinate new strategies for increasing trade in
six growing markets including Colombia,
Indonesia, Vietnam, Saudi
Arabia, South Africa
and Turkey.
I also am a member of the Commerce Department’s
Internet Policy Task Force – tasked with promoting the growth of the knowledge
economy and supporting our Internet and technology companies overseas. In this role, I have focused on how
restrictions on Internet data flows can be a trade barrier, hindering
innovation and competition in many markets.

Before coming to the International Trade Administration, I
was a tenured law professor at the University
of Washington, School
of Law in Seattle, where I taught and researched commercial
and banking law. My research focused on
the impact of corruption on economic development in countries with natural
resources.

President Obama has spoken of the devastating cost of corruption. And the need
for change: “In too many places, the culture of the bribe is a brake on
development and prosperity. It discourages entrepreneurship, destroys
public trust, and undermines the rule of law while stifling economic
growth. With a new commitment to strengthening and enforcing rules
against corruption, economic opportunity and prosperity will be more broadly
shared.”

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

As we continue to celebrate Asian American and Pacific
Islanders Heritage Month, it is important for us to reflect on our past – the
difficulties we had growing up in immigrant families, the accomplishments our
community has achieved and the barriers we still need to knock down.

Being an Asian American now is certainly different from when
I was growing up. In the Ozzie and
Harriet era in which I was born, I thought I had to choose between being
Chinese and being American. I remembered
that most mornings, my grade school teacher would ask us what we had for
breakfast. If we had eaten anything that
was considered “un-American” – in my case, it was the rice porridge with fish
and vegetables that my mother gave me – my teacher would slap our hands with a
ruler.

When I was young, I constantly struggled between my desire
to be more “American” and my parents’ attempt to make me more “Chinese”. It took the civil rights movement to teach me
that I could be both Chinese and American.
I could be Chinese-American. I
could be myself. I could be loyal and
patriotic to the Star-Spangled Banner and still eat with chopsticks.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce
series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their
work.

In my role,
I advise Secretary Locke and our Assistant Secretaries on legislative issues
and congressional relations, as well as outreach to state and local government.
I manage these efforts and the Department’s relationships with eight
congressional committees of jurisdiction across my portfolio, which includes
economic development, census/economic analysis, minority business development,
innovation and entrepreneurship and recovery act implementation.
Additionally, I advise Secretary Locke on Asian American and Pacific Islander
issues and am working closely with the White House Initiative on Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders to increase access to and participation in
federal programs for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).

Today, and
throughout this entire month, we commemorate the courage and contributions of
early Asian American and Pacific Islanders who journeyed to the United States,
set up lives here against unbelievable odds and laid out roots for future
generations. I know that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my great
grandparents and grandparents who left China
after the war in search of a better life for our family in America.
Their strength and perseverance continues to inspire me and is the story of
many Asian American families in this country. During Asian Pacific
American Heritage Month, we honor the pioneers, the laborers, the
veterans, the entrepreneurs, the trailblazers and the families – all who
worked hard to open the doors of opportunity to a new generation.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight
on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of
Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the future
through their work.

I started my career in ITA as
an intern in 1983 -- looking up tariff rates in Latin American countries for
companies that called in. Many of you
are probably amazed that anyone could spend so many years in one organization,
but during this course of time, I have moved around quite a bit across ITA – at
least eight official jobs spanning our five business units. These experiences have given me a deeper
appreciation of what we can do as an organization to advance U.S. business
interests globally. Five
Administrations, 11 Secretaries of Commerce, and 12 Under Secretaries of International
Trade later, I am still as passionate for advancing fair and free trade today
as when I first arrived in Washington.
(And I never imagined that I would be part of the organization’s
leadership team!)

When I started my career in
international trade, U.S. exports were $205 billion. Today, we export more than
five times that amount, totaling more than $1 trillion worth in goods and
services exports. While we remain the
number one exporter of goods and services, the volume of global trade has grown
substantially over this period of time, and with that comes some challenges –
and in many ways, the same challenges.
Back in the 1980s, the big concern was the $58 billion trade deficit and
what we could do about it; today our trade deficit is nearly $380 billion –
still a concern. It’s been very interesting for me as a career civil
servant, implementing and shaping trade policy across five Administrations. In
many ways, I think the importance of international trade has stood the test of
time with bipartisan support for increased trade liberalization, to varying
degrees, across every Administration in my career. When I officially started
ITA in 1987, the Uruguay Round had just begun; now we are in the midst of
trying to bring a close to the Doha Round. There was only one Free Trade Agreement in
place with Israel. Now we have 17 FTAs in force – and hopefully three more in
the horizon. While the issues we debated
have evolved -- reflecting changes in industry, new business models, and future
technologies -- there has been general agreement that an open and competitive
global marketplace is good for citizens, consumers, businesses, and
governments.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight
on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of
Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the future
through their work.

At NOAA, science underpins all that we do. One reason that I
am so proud to serve as the under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA
administrator is the track record of excellent science at our agency, our focus
on delivering essential services based on that science, and the Obama Administration’s
commitment to making policy and management decisions informed by the best
science available.

When I first met with then President-elect Obama in mid-December
2008, we discussed ways that NOAA could provide America the best climate change
science, restore her ocean’s vitality, provide the best possible weather
forecasts and disaster warnings, and help our nation transition to more
sustainable ways of living. After asking some very perceptive questions, his
comment was simply, “Let’s do it!” Now, how refreshing is that?

As NOAA administrator, my responsibilities include promoting
and enabling the science of oceans and the atmosphere; using science to provide
services to save lives and property and enable the creation of jobs; and using science
in our mission to be good stewards of oceans, coasts, the atmosphere and the
planet.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight
on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of
Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the future
through their work.

Dr. Rebecca Blank is theActing Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Commerce and Undersecretary for Economic Affairs

As the Acting Deputy Secretary, I focus on matters of management and policy for the Commerce Department’s 12 bureaus, functioning as the department’s chief operating officer. In this role, I oversee the central departments that coordinate DOC’s work on budgets, acquisitions, human resources, facilities, and other management issues. I also retain my role as Undersecretary for Economic Affairs and head of the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), in which I oversee a talented staff of demographers, statisticians, and others at the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The statistical agencies within Commerce collect and analyze data that help to give us an accurate and complete picture of America and guide social and economic policy in the United States.

Since taking the role of Acting Deputy Secretary at the department, I feel even more responsible for helping America to “Win the Future.” This will require effective work by Commerce’s agencies to assist in growing U.S. exports, promoting domestic economic development, encouraging innovation, collecting and disseminating vital economic data, and advancing a sustainable environment in America’s oceans and atmosphere. In the midst of tight budgets, we all recognize the need to make responsible choices about the services and programs that government provides. But we also recognize that many of these services and programs are central to helping America’s businesses and consumers grow and stay competitive.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series,
which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through
their work.

As Assistant Secretary for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Commerce Department, I have the privilege to serve as Secretary Locke’s principal advisor on legislative issues, congressional relations and outreach to the nation’s governors and mayors. I manage these efforts and the Department’s relationships with its 19 congressional committees of jurisdiction across the Department’s 12 bureaus.

During my tenure, the Department and Congress have collaborated on a range of measures, such as the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, which aims to boost the innovation on which our economic growth depends. Lately, I’ve been focusing on two key administration legislative priorities: comprehensive patent reform legislation, and Congressional implementation of the U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement.

Given that Members of Congress come to Washington to be a direct voice for their states and districts, and understanding that the Commerce Department exists to be the voice for American businesses, my job gives me the perspective that, together, we can be a powerful force for helping America win the future. That’s what drives me to connect with members of Congress and local governments on Secretary Locke’s goals and the Commerce Department’s resources for American businesses, including those owned and led by women.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series,
which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through
their work.

As
Chief of Staff I run the office of the Secretary, and ensure Secretary Locke’s
priorities and initiatives are executed by the Department. I work with the
Secretary daily managing his workload and departmental staff to assist him with
carrying out the President’s vision for “Winning the Future.” Whether it is
through launching the National Export Initiative or completing the 2010 Census
on time and under budget, I make sure the department works efficiently and
effectively to strengthen America’s economy through the Secretary’s vision.

Through
our work we also have the unique opportunity to help American small businesses
first hand, including those run by women. Just this month, Acting Deputy
Secretary Becky Blank and the Economics and Statistics Administration released
the first comprehensive federal report in decades on the conditions of “Women
in America.” (PDF) The Department works continuously to address the challenges
faced by women and girls especially in regard to the economic struggles they
face. Through awarding startup grants or making export information and guidance
available to those businesses ready to expand, the Commerce Department provides
guidance daily to women entrepreneurs and business owners in order to foster
the growth of the U.S. economy. Women have dramatically reshaped their role in
the workforce over the past several decades and the U.S. economy will only
benefit as more women continue to grow their businesses.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series,
which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the President's vision of winning the future through
their work.

Last year, President Obama launched the National Export Initiative (NEI) during his State of the Union Address, as a key component of his economic recovery agenda, setting the ambitious goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015 in order to support and sustain millions of American jobs.

In my role as Deputy Director for the NEI, I have the distinct pleasure of working on an issue that is very dear to me: ensuring America's competitiveness today and in the future. And it's important to remember that at the center of this ability to compete are the contributions of African-American inventors, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals -- who we celebrate and honor during Black History Month and every month.

Today as the global marketplace expands and takes shape, it gives me great pleasure to continue in the legacy of my African-American forefathers and mothers through my work on the NEI. As Deputy Director, I have the ability to help American companies find new and innovative ways to grow their sales in international markets and create employment opportunities for American workers. As Secretary Locke often says, “As American companies sell more of their goods and services abroad, they will need to produce more, which means more good-paying American jobs for our workers.” With only 1 percent of American companies exporting and only 58 percent of those businesses exporting to just one market, there is tremendous opportunity for America to strengthen our economic footing through the expansion of exports—meaning we aggressively compete for every contract and every job.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series,
which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are
contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through
their work.

During his recent State of the Union address, President Obama reminded us that in order to be competitive as a country, we need to “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” One of the best ways we can celebrate Black History Month is to revive the spirit of past African American inventors and invest more in innovation and entrepreneurship.

It was back in 1907 when Booker T. Washington said, “every member of the race should strive to be successful in business, however humble that business might be.” My work at the Department of Commerce provides me an opportunity to help businesses start, flourish and create high-skill, high-wage jobs.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the President's vision of winning the future through their work.

As I travel around the country, I am in awe of the tenacity
and the indomitable spirit of minority business owners and their unwillingness
to quit in the face of overwhelming odds. That’s the spirit that makes America great.

As the National Director of the Minority Business
Development Agency (MBDA), I am proud to be a part of this Administration and a
part of an Agency where our work helps to expand the U.S. economy and create new jobs
through the historically underutilized minority business community.

I have the privilege of serving on the senior staff of the
Secretary of Commerce and serving as Bureau Chief of MBDA, as well as engaging
with various stakeholders, members of Congress, minority-owned and operated
businesses, and nonprofit organizations that support minority business
development across the nation.

MBDA is a national organization with more than 46 business
centers in five regions, which generates nearly $4 billion in contracts and
capital for minority-owned businesses. We also create thousands of jobs for all
Americans and help save thousands of existing jobs.

Minority-owned firms are an engine of job creation for the U.S. economy,
outpacing growth within the general business community for most of the last
decade. Collectively, minority-owned businesses generate $1 trillion in
economic output and create nearly 6 million jobs. They also possess almost $2.5
trillion in buying power.

My first introduction to business was as a child growing up
in St. Louis, MO. I learned lessons about entrepreneurship
from my next door neighbor who ran a small cookie distribution company from his
home. He taught me about the importance
of inventory and business efficiencies. While I was a dreamer, who often thought
about what people were doing in other countries, my parents’ neighbors and
teachers taught me that simply dreaming wasn’t enough. Making dreams come to
fruition requires true grit and determination.